The Paymaster by Tom Bower (III)

Robinson left Jaguar unsure of his future but grateful to be hired as Joska Bourgeois's consultant and adviser. Over the following months, he spent time with her in Brussels, lectured at a management college and continued to advise the workers at Meriden while pondering his future. In December 1975, his limited prospects were transformed. Like generals in battle, putative tycoons rely upon luck, and Robinson's good fortune was the death of Maurice Edelman, Labour MP for Coventry North West. Edelman's majority in 1974 had been 7488. Many aspiring candidates sought that safe seat in a constituency where 60 per cent of the workforce was employed in manufacturing, but none enjoyed the popularity that Robinson, a committed anti-European, had cultivated among local activists. The recompense for his hospitality to trade unionists at the Post House Hotel, the unsubstantiated rumours of loaned Jaguars for the shop stewards, and his efforts for the workers' co-operative at Meriden, placed Robinson as the runaway favourite to be declared Labour's candidate on 5 February. Unlike others, not only was he popular with Labour voters but his middle-class background might also attract some Conservatives.

Victory for Labour at the by-election was crucial not only for the candidate. Harold Wilson's overall majority in the Commons was a single seat and was jeopardised by the government's huge unpopularity caused by a deep recession, suicidal wage demands and inflation racing towards 30 per cent. Nevertheless, Robinson was confident of his future. Since the government's fate depended upon his victory, party workers were recruited from the whole country for the campaign and, to maintain their good humour, lodged at his expense in hotels rather than the usual boarding-houses.

Election campaigns often expose candidates' unseen character-istics, but Robinson proved inscrutable to normal judgement. He was popular in the constituency although noticeably unpassionate about politics. His simultaneous support for Denis Healey's destructive economic policies and his sympathy for business co-existed oddly with his vocal commitment to the state ownership of Britain's major industries and high taxation. Whichever side he supported, his pedigree classed him as an outsider in the Labour Party, especially among the local far-left activists. Peter Snape, a newly elected MP appointed as his escort, complained that the candidate was an enigma. While affable and effective on the door-step, he was noticeably lazy, always looking for an opportunity for a drink or an excuse for 'a meeting' at the nearest restaurant, although only the best restaurants were acceptable. Robinson appeared untroubled by any categorisation.

In a turgid contest against Jonathan Guinness, an unsuitable Tory candidate supported by all his party's leaders, Robinson wooed the working-class women on council estates in the morn-ing as a well-dressed enchanter, and arrived every lunchtime in his brother's mustard Jaguar XJ6 to address workers outside factories. The introduction was glowing. Robinson was hailed as an exceptional candidate, a whizz-kid certain of appointment to the cabinet within one year. 'This is no backbench utility model,' blared his propagandists, suppressing an embarrassing condem-nation of Robinson by the Italian Socialist Party for 'creating cloud-cuckoo-land' at Innocenti. Labour's efforts also concealed another of their candidate's explicable sensitivities, his marriage.

Sympathetic journalists had been asked by the party to subject Robinson to a mock press conference. The candidate, it was felt, required tuition in how to repel embarrassment. Robinson arrived unaware of the fake conditions for what Simon Hoggart, the journalist, called 'a grilling far worse than anything he was likely to have to suffer during the real campaign'. The first question bewildered the candidate: 'As a boss, did you not make life miserable for so many decent, hard-working people?' The second was equally troubling, despite the gross exaggeration: 'Why should an immensely rich man also seek to be powerful?' But it was the third question that drove Robinson to storm out: 'Have you left your wife?' For Robinson, it was too close to the truth. That emerged on 12 March 1976, the morning after he won the election with a majority of 3694.

Marie Elena, the new MP's wife, had not been seen in Coventry throughout the campaign or even on election night. Party workers had realised that she 'hated' politics and that the marriage was precarious. A few days before the election, Marie Elena had admitted, with dangerous honesty, 'Things are not perfect in our marriage. I would not say it is in difficulties, but the situation is not perfect, either,' and had confirmed her uncertainty about Robinson's return to his home, except 'when he's sure that every-one else is happy'. At Labour Party headquarters, her disparage-ment caused concern. Two days after the election, Kathy Ham, a press officer, was dispatched to Surrey to await Robinson's arrival and arrange a 'happy family' photo call. 'I'm not ready,' shouted Marie Elena, slamming the door. 'Wait outside. He's not here yet.' When the new MP arrived and stepped smiling from the car, Ham dived through the front door. 'The whole house is a stage set,' she thought, looking at the crimson-velvet-upholstered furniture, heavy velvet curtains and rococo sofas. The eventual photograph, she reflected, matched the setting and was completely phoney.

Shortly after Kathy Ham departed, Mrs Robinson emerged from the house and admitted with excruciating candour, 'My career is music, his is politics. I am just not interested in politics. I don't think I should follow like a little dog.' Asked about their relationship, she answered, 'I can't say yes or no about divorce.'

Such honesty was unusual but it was the inevitable consequence of Robinson's affairs, especially his growing attachment to Joska Bourgeois. For any other novice backbench MP the publicised rages of an irate wife would have been embarrassing, but Robinson was strangely insensitive to criticism or conventional expectations. Flush with self-admiration, he disparaged anyone failing to accept unquestioningly his interpretations of events. That was both a source of strength and a weakness. Pursuing his interests with fevered sanctimony, he would not be swayed by consideration for others or ponder whether their judgement was valid. Rich in contradictions and glorification, the admirer of Shakespeare offered himself as a servant of the people selflessly seeking the common good. Few were convinced except Robinson, who appeared to be utterly persuaded by his own performance. His weakness was the unusual hauteur which Peter Snape observed during the election campaign and described as 'laziness'. The frenetic Robinson would have been baffled by that descrip-tion, because Snape's observation was incomplete. The 'laziness' was Robinson's proclivity to cut corners, ignore rules and sustain secrecy about some sensitive activities, especially his commercial life.

Robinson had no intention of adopting the lifestyle of a traditional MP earning £5750 per annum. Although he was not wealthy, Robinson had received £50,000 compensation from BL and had earned some fees from Joska Bourgeois. There was no sign that his Italian earnings, deposited tax-free in Switzerland, had been repatriated, although after the devaluation of sterling the value of those foreign savings had been protected. Like his predecessor, who spent much of the year in the South of France writing romantic novels, Robinson chose to be an absentee MP. There would not be a permanent home in the constituency; instead he would either stay at the Post House or lodge with Brenda Price, his new assistant, whom he had met at Meriden. Nor would he encourage the local party to rent permanent headquarters for political meetings. Instead of rousing the public to enrol as party members, he would establish alliances with friendly councillors and trade-union leaders and seek to dis-enfranchise the critics and the left-wing activists by limiting the number of meetings. Blessed with that easy self-assurance, Robinson entered the Commons convinced of early promotion by Harold Wilson. During his first days, no one was unaware that the self-confident victor was uninterested in the customary parliamentary life of a backbencher and was searching for an immediate place in Whitehall. 'I have a contribution,' he repeated. 'With my business knowledge and common sense, I have a lot to offer to the government.' The brash message jarred with the politics and atmosphere of perpetual crisis within the party. Although the government was about to renationalise the aircraft and ship-building industries, forge a servile Social Contract with the trade unions and bow to the IMF's humiliating terms to prevent Britain being declared bankrupt, Robinson was discouraged only by the creeping paralysis caused by the militant left. His message that Labour should co-operate with business and not fight against the market was sincere but, he noticed, incomprehensible to most of his new colleagues. Adroitly, he modified his arguments and, after Wilson's resig-nation, appeared to align himself with Michael Foot, minister of employment and deputy leader of the party, and Tony Benn.

For Benn, in particular, the Meriden workers' co-operative was a nirvana. The occupation of the factory by workers since 1974 had become a high-profile socialist cause, repeatedly attracting public attention to the strident demands of the anti-capitalist extreme left. Although the workers were producing only 250 bikes a week based on twenty-two-year-old designs, Meriden represented for the left the ideal of workers' self-management. Survival and success depended upon obtaining adequate funds from the government and the guidance of an experienced industrial manager. Robinson volunteered to perform that role. By then, the workers had received a £4.2 million loan but had no prospect of paying the £1.25 million in interest, or repaying the capital. To obtain more funds, Robinson pledged to 'fight like hell' to obtain investment from the National Enterprise Board, the successor to the ill-fated IRC, supported by Benn for those projects. Meriden was Robinson's opportunity to prove his pro-fessional abilities and political integrity, and emerge from the obscurity impeding all new arrivals in Westminster. A junior ministerial post, he believed, would be soon offered.

Robinson's enthusiasm was not matched by his grasp of realities. James Callaghan, Wilson's successor, destined to become Britain's worst post-war prime minister, was battling to save his party from a coup engineered by Tony Benn, who admitted that 'we were a serious left, and we weren't playing games'. For Labour's right wing, Meriden was a curse which hopefully would wither. Adrift from the mainstream of the party, Robinson was thrashing forlornly as Benn's puppet, searching for non-existent supporters. In desperation, he turned to Harold Lever, a multimillionaire Labour MP for Manchester, who had earned a fortune from gold speculation and ranked among Benn's staunchest critics.

Lever, a benign social democrat inhabiting a palatial house in Eaton Square, enjoyed close relations with Harold Wilson, for whom he had brokered in 1975 a financial package to prevent the American motor company Chrysler closing its operations in Britain with 27,000 redundancies. From his elegant salon, Lever could usually secure the attention of most senior Labour ministers on the telephone. In the company of that rare breed of Labour politician, Robinson witnessed the improbable influence wielded by Labour millionaires. But even Lever, faced by Whitehall's antagonism, obtained only £500,000 for Meriden. 'It's pathetic,' complained Robinson, comparing the Italian government 'pour-ing money into motorbikes' to Labour's abandonment of the industry.

Robinson made no effort to conceal his disillusion or to in-gratiate himself. Standing frequently in the House of Commons' bar, he complained alternately about James Callaghan's failure to appoint him a junior minister and about his marriage. Partly to prove his credentials, he chose in December 1978 to become Meriden's chief executive, rising in the Commons only to protest about the catastrophe enveloping BL and Jaguar. Across that patch-work corporation, bewildered managers were watching militant trade unionists impose anarchy in the production areas. Britain's major car company was veering towards collapse. Robinson's judgement was damning.

The new politician criticised the reorganisation of BL, under the 'disastrous' Ryder plan, into an 'unwieldy monolith' impos-sible to manage. Since his resignation, one-fifth of the British car market had been lost to foreign imports. Repeatedly in the Commons, as the workers' champion, Robinson castigated his successors for wasteful redundancy programmes and bad sales promotion which, he said, caused more damage 'than all the strikes put together'. The paradox was not evident to him. Donald Ryder, chairman of the National Enterprise Board and architect of Leyland's reorganisation, was a member of the very quango, staffed by nonentities and civil servants and invented by the Labour govern-ment, whose help Robinson sought at Meriden. The con-fusion of the industrial executive posing as an expert, forgetting his own failures at Innocenti and Jaguar, irritated those at BL under attack from his new pulpit.

His former colleagues' suspicion of a vendetta was reinforced by his performance at a meeting at Leyland House in Coventry with three other MPs. Their host was Derek Whittaker, Robinson's former deputy, who occupied the post Robinson had desired. Vociferously, Robinson attacked Whittaker for issuing threats against the repeatedly striking trade unions. 'Give employees understanding and certainty,' the workers' champion urged. 'BL has become an industrial battleground.' Despite Robinson's gratuitous insults, Whittaker remained silent. His visitor's agenda, he believed, was opportunistic.

The collapse of the Labour government in May 1979 - leading to the Tories' election victory under Margaret Thatcher - amid widespread strikes, chaos and soaring inflation triggered an internecine war within the Labour Party. The selection of Michael Foot, a far-left activist, as Labour's new leader, placed Robinson in a political limbo. He appeared to have attached himself to the left and their trade-union sympathisers, advocating in speeches nurturing 'workers' loyalties', avoiding redundancies and never closing loss-making factories, yet his lifestyle - he drove a Jaguar and lived in comfort in London and Surrey - reflected his desire to accumulate wealth. His piety was cast in doubt, especially after his renewed outbursts against the management of BL. During the dying days of Callaghan's government, Derek Whittaker had been fired and replaced by Michael Edwardes, a South African industrialist with no sympathies for Labour, the unions or the incumbent managers. Edwardes accepted the task of destroying a lame duck and building a new corporation. Old factories would be closed, incompetent managers dismissed and trade-union wreckers emasculated. Robinson was outraged. He accused Edwardes of 'frightening ignorance of industrial manage-ment [which is causing] prolonged uncertainty'. Under Edwardes, he continued, BL was collapsing and the Midlands were becoming 'an industrial disaster area'. In more personal attacks, he con-demned the South African's 'manifest failure' while praising his own 'track record' at Jaguar. 'The credibility of Sir Michael and his senior staff,' he asserted, 'is at an all time low.' For Edwardes, the unceasing personal attacks from someone in a privileged position and with a moot past reeked of sanctimony and were an abuse too far.

In spring 1980, Edwardes, accompanied by Arthur Large, BL's company secretary, visited Sir Kit McMahon, the deputy governor of the Bank of England. Large handed over Eric Gregory's report on his investigation of Robinson's activities at Innocenti. It revealed the deposit by Robinson in the early 1970s of thousands of pounds in a Swiss bank, contrary to Britain's laws. To Edwardes's disappoint-ment, despite the compelling evidence, McMahon declined to undertake an investigation. The new Conservative government, ignoring the Labour Party's protest, had abandoned exchange controls and it was deemed inappropriate to pursue Robinson under discarded laws.

Unaware of his escape from embarrassment, Robinson fired one more shot. Edwardes was manoeuvring towards a showdown with militant trade unionists formenting strikes in several factories. He threatened to close one particular factory permanently unless the strikers returned to work. Robinson and Roy Hattersley met him to protest about the threat and urged 'mediation'. Edwardes listened to the familiar language demanding capitula-tion and charity for the West Midlands while ignoring the reality of world markets, and bade the two politicians farewell. In his opinion, Robinson's poor performance at Jaguar was augmented by the news from Meriden.

Three hundred workers at Meriden had hailed Robinson as the workers' champion. He had persuaded the Conservative govern-ment to cancel £11 million of debts. Public money had been wasted, yet the unpaid chief executive wanted more. 'It is like the Battle of Britain,' he urged. 'We have fought to fight again. We have a long way to go.'

Conservative ministers and their officials in Whitehall were unimpressed. The co-operative had sabotaged the creation of a modern motorbike industry in the other Norton-Triumph factories and, under Robinson, Meriden's administration was in chaos. Without adequate records, the breakdown of accounting procedures and no stock control, the company's auditors had reported, 'We have been unable to obtain all the information and explanations which we considered necessary for the purposes of our audit.' As a director, Robinson was also liable for failing to register the company's accounts, and could be summoned to appear before Cardiff magistrates. Robinson's nonchalant dis-regard for his responsibilities sat oddly alongside his public protest about Rupert Murdoch's surprise purchase of Times Newspapers. Loftily, Robinson demanded that Murdoch should be compelled to 'disclose all financial documents' to ease a 'situation of suspicion' and reassure the public about the deal's 'due propriety and fairness'. His demand for openness and honesty - a clarion call to the left - was to haunt him later. At that moment, he was tormented by his own party.

To his surprise, in 1981, despite his support for left-wing causes, Robinson was deemed politically unreliable by the far-left activists in his constituency. For the teachers and trade unionists infiltrating the Labour Party across the country, Robinson was a soft target who could possibly be replaced by their own candidate at the next election. On 30 July 1981, the members of the constituency party met at the Hen Lane club to vote whether Robinson should be deselected. Robinson was vulnerable. Despite his record in Westminster and Meriden, and his generous hospitality to many party workers, he had become notorious as an absentee MP who had ceased holding regular public meetings and only occasionally drove up from London in his Jaguar to meet constituents requesting help. Disagreeably, Will Reese, the left's candidate, had attracted considerable support.

Among the disillusioned were those who disliked Robinson's manner. A story had circulated that, during the count of votes at the 1979 general election (Robinson won, with a majority of 3971 votes), he had joined Pam Davies, an attractive twenty-year-old Conservative candidate in the local elections, who was standing with some friends. During a light-hearted conversation with these strangers, Robinson said to Davies, 'Oh, I thought you'd be having it all the time.' She interpreted his sexual comment and other remarks as a proposition for 'teaming up'. Davies flushed and was 'just a bit amazed'. In the ensuing embarrassed silence, Bill Hardy, a Labour councillor, hustled Robinson away. Later, Hardy returned. 'I don't know why he has to do that sort of thing,' he apologised to Davies.

Rumours of similar unpleasantness had caused disaffection, but Robinson hoped to count on moderate Labour supporters who disliked the Marxists and were grateful for his benevolence. Through-out the protracted count, Robinson's survival remained in doubt. At the last moment, one branch of the electricians' union, delegated to vote for Reese, switched to Robinson. By a whisker, Robinson won. His defeated enemies credited his generosity to the moderates as decisive. Robinson's 'laziness' was to ignore any lessons from that debacle. 'I never look back,' he said proudly. He revealed himself as an undoubting egoist, disdainful of self-analysis or intro-spection, dismissive of any events beyond his self-aggrandisement. Having survived, he was contemptuous about the original circumstances. Politics, he concluded, was precarious and disappointing. He would return to earning money.